If you want to get a stock DSLR camera ready for astro photography, it is quite good option.

If you are more adventurous (not much, just little), take T2i which was the same features that are useful for astro imaging and modify it in a professional service. If you are more adventurous modify it yourself These two options will give better results.

Keep in mind that T2i has the same sensor and processor as 60D/60Da, which does matter in the astro imaging...

I have a 60Da and I just had my T2i fully modded by Hap Griffin. I can use an Astronomik OWB filter and shoot perfect daylight pics with autofocus and use a Astronomik L filter and get all the Ha to my sensor. You can get the T2i, mod, Astronomik clip in OWB L & CLS-CCD filters,and still have lees $ in it than the 60Da... but you will have voided the warranty. Get a used T2i or T3i (flip out screen ) and save more $ not worry about the warranty. I would highly recommend the T2i/T3i with the full mod

Thanks for the report! I think that the new Astrodon full-spectrum modification is going to be a popular one. I'm taking my FS modified 40D down to Kennedy Space Center this week along with an Astronomik OWB clip-in filter to mount at the Atlas 5 launch pad to capture close-ups of the launch.

it does a great job. But I wanted to be able to get all the Ha possible sometimes. I'll put up a couple of example pictures. Both the Rosette and Flaming Star were taken from my driveway in a Red Zone. Andromeda is from a Green Zone. I have been very happy with the 60Da, But I have a self modded 1000D and I've had a taste of how much more Ha there is out there to capture. The 60Da also does wonderful daytime pics too. With the full mod Hap Griffin did to my T2i I can use clip in filters and control exactly what get to the sensor. So the T2i can now do IR, Astro, and daytime with auto focus.

Hey Toxic Coolaid What I will do is, Attach Camera with Universal Orion Adapter and T-Mount to the telescope. I have older model Canon Eos Rebel XSI, I am not modding Canon Eos Rebel XSI cause I need the video recording option that Canon EOS-60DA has. How much of recording time of movie I have if I use 64GB Secure Digital Card?

I don't know the actual video times on the 60Da. My GoPro 2 get 1/2 hr per Gig and 1080i 60 frames per second. But like I said, totally different camera. I seem to recall reading somewhere that there is a time limit per video file. You may want to search for that. I also think the video on the 60Da is the same as the T3i. Once again search for that .

I've had the 60Da since mid December and am frankly thrilled with the results. Previously I have used an unmodded T1i and an Orion Deepspace Monochrome Imager III with a Nautilus 7-position motorized filter-wheel. I use a Skywatcher 120 ED (900mm) mounted on an Orion Atlas EG-G mount with 80mm tracking scope running the Orion Starshoot Autoguider on a short-tube 80 guidescope.

The quality of nebula shots with the 60Da is at least as good as the Mono-Imager III, even when I use the Hubble Pallet filters on the Mono. There are three HUGE differences. First the field of view without a reducer for the 60Da is over twice that of the 1.4 MPxl Mono Imager III. That means I can shoot the 7 sisters in a single set of exposures with no stitching required, but at the same time lose no detail, color, or luminance. Second, instead of having to shoot seven exposures through seven filters to get full exposure, I can shoot a single exposure of the same time-period. For example, using the mono-CCD camera with LRGB, Ha, SII, and O3 at 10 min for lum, and 2x binning for colors at 5 min, takes about an hour (with focusing checks, filter changes, etc.) versus 10 minutes for the 60Da. Even with a Bayer Matrix that means that I am using a significant multiple of the number of sensors on the target image. I have read a great deal of theory on why the monochrome CCD should deliver a better image, but to date the images I have gotten with the 60Da have matched or beat those of the Mono CCD.

Last, but certainly not least, the Monochrome Imager III chip is thermoelectrically cooled and theoretically should give me a very low noise ratio. In practice (to date) the 60Da has presented a substantially lower noise ratio than the admittedly relatively low noise of the CCD. Additionally, and I think very critically, the CCD imager had a substantial number of "dead" sensors, some of them clustered together in lines of five or more. As long as the vast majority of the background was black, that did not present a problem, but when shooting a large, very bright nebula area, they showed and had to be edited out. The "hot pixels" in the 60Da were very minimal and with a single hot pixel map can be eliminated almost effortlessly.

I previously used Maxim DL for the CCD. I was very surprised to find that the EOS software that came with the camera worked far better than Maxim or Nebulosity. Using the live-shoot feature at 10x I found I could get an amazingly good focus, limited only by the seeing on a given night. Post processing, I have found Adobe Lightroom to be superb, at at $179 retail a LOT less expensive than Photoshop.

As an added advantage, the camera can be controlled via a powered 35' USB2 extension cable, as can the autoguider. The CCD camera or filterwheel would not tolerate the extension. I control the mount using the Orion Starseek iPad App with it WIFI connection. I also have a relatively inexpensive Orion motorized focuser and have put a 50' serial cable extension on my paddle. That means that I can sit on my glassed in back porch in heated comfort while controlling the entire operation outside from orientation and sych to focus and imaging.

There is a very significant difference in sensitivity in the 60Da when compared to other DSLRs, both in luminance and in Ha sensitivity. I have seen comparisons that suggest the 60Da is less sensitive to Ha than a CCD with an Ha filter, but in my experience to-date at processing time I get as much image intensity from any given Ha luminance in a nebula on the 60Da as I do on the CCD. The major difference is that I get a much bigger piece of the sky, with as good or better resolution, and lower noise levels.

Notably the price I paid for the CCD Monochrome Imager and motorized color wheel with filters (1.25") was actually slightly more than I paid for the 60Da.

Now for the real icing on the cake. I recently visited Barbatos and took Canon 60Da along with a 18mm-55mm and a 55mm-250mm set of lenses. While there I shot some night images of the moonlit ocean, night clouds, and several other low-light and night images. I generally cranked up the ISO to 6400 and in a couple of shots all the way to 12800. When I got back I processed the RAW images in Lightroom. WOW! I was able to got some of the most amazing shots in near total darkness and some strikingly colored shots in partial moonlight. The extra wavelengths available on the 60Da mad a huge difference. My daughter, an accomplished photographer, shot several scenes using her much more expensive and very advanced DSLR (Sony) and lenses. I was able to get elements that simply were not there in her images!

I feel like I have only scratched the surface on this camera, and have gone from frustrated over failed images when after most of an hour of imaging a cloud or other mishap killed a single filter's shot to downright excited again about astrophotography!

Attached Files

At the risk of overkill, this shot was made at 0.6 seconds, ISO 3200, handheld in partial moonlight. The boat in the photo was barely visible to the naked eye as a faint white blur in the distance. The clouds were not visible at all. There was an extremely faint sparkling on the water, and the translucence in the foreground was not there in the least. My daughter's camera got some of this but the translucence was not present in her exposures.

Attached Files

How much of recording time of movie I have if I use 64GB Secure Digital Card?

60Da recording times below; what really determines the time is the movie recording mode; no total limit per se, you are limited by the card size (64GB will give you quite hefty time; plus you'll be off loading to PC anyway so you are unlimited in that respect). Thx